The ecliptic is the plane of the earth's orbit around the sun. In more accurate terms, it is the intersection of the celestial sphere with the ecliptic plane, which is the geometric plane containing the mean orbit of the Earth around the Sun...

In astronomy, the zodiac is a circle of twelve 30° divisions of celestial longitude which are centred upon the ecliptic: the apparent path of the Sun across the celestial sphere over the course of the year...

. Caused by sunlight scattered by space dust in the zodiacal cloud, it is so faint that either moonlight

Moonlight

Moonlight is the light that reaches Earth from the Moon. This light does not originate from the Moon, but from sunlight. The Moon does not, however, reflect sunlight like a mirror, but it reflects light from those portions of its surface which the Sun's light strikes. See diffuse reflection.In...

Light pollution, also known as photopollution or luminous pollution, is excessive or obtrusive artificial light.The International Dark-Sky Association defines light pollution as:...

renders it invisible. The zodiacal light decreases in intensity with distance from the Sun, but on very dark nights it has been observed in a band completely around the ecliptic. In fact, the zodiacal light covers the entire sky, being responsible for major part(60%) of the total skylight on a moonless night. There is also a very faint, but still slightly increased, oval glow directly opposite the Sun which is known as the gegenschein

Gegenschein

The gegenschein is a faint brightening of the night sky in the region of the antisolar point.- Explanation :Like the zodiacal light, the gegenschein is sunlight reflected by interplanetary dust...

This article is about the Italian-born astronomer. For his French-born great-grandson, see Jean-Dominique Cassini.Giovanni Domenico Cassini was an Italian/French mathematician, astronomer, engineer, and astrologer...

Nicolas Fatio de Duillier was a Swiss mathematician known for his work on the zodiacal light problem, for his very close relationship with Isaac Newton, for his role in the Newton v. Leibniz calculus controversy, and for originating the "push" or "shadow" theory of gravitation...

in 1684.

Viewing

In the mid-latitudes, the zodiacal light is best observed in the western sky in the spring after the evening twilight

Twilight

Twilight is the time between dawn and sunrise or between sunset and dusk, during which sunlight scattering in the upper atmosphere illuminates the lower atmosphere, and the surface of the earth is neither completely lit nor completely dark. The sun itself is not directly visible because it is below...

has completely disappeared, or in the eastern sky in the autumn just before the morning twilight appears. The zodiacal light appears as a column, brighter at the horizon, tilted at the angle of the ecliptic. Since the light scattered from extremely small dust particles is strongly forward scattering, although the zodiacal light actually extends all the way around the sky, it is brightest when observing at a small angle with the sun. This is why it is most clearly visible near sunrise or sunset, when the sun is blocked, but the dust particles nearest the line of sight to the sun are not. The dust band that causes the zodiacal light is uniform across the whole ecliptic.

The dust further from the ecliptic is almost undetectable except when viewed at a small angle with the sun. Thus it is possible to see more of the width at small angles toward the sun, and it appears wider near the horizon, closer to the sun under the horizon.

Formation

Zodiacal light is produced by sunlight reflecting off dust particles in the solar system

Solar System

The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...

Cosmic dust is a type of dust composed of particles in space which are a few molecules to 0.1 µm in size. Cosmic dust can be further distinguished by its astronomical location; for example: intergalactic dust, interstellar dust, interplanetary dust and circumplanetary dust .In our own Solar...

Spectroscopy is the study of the interaction between matter and radiated energy. Historically, spectroscopy originated through the study of visible light dispersed according to its wavelength, e.g., by a prism. Later the concept was expanded greatly to comprise any interaction with radiative...

The interplanetary dust cloud is cosmic dust which pervades the space between planets in the Solar System and in other planetary systems...

. Since most of the material is located near the plane of the solar system, the zodiacal light is seen along the ecliptic. The amount of material needed to produce the observed zodiacal light is amazingly small. If it were in the form of 1 mm particles, each with the same albedo

Albedo

Albedo , or reflection coefficient, is the diffuse reflectivity or reflecting power of a surface. It is defined as the ratio of reflected radiation from the surface to incident radiation upon it...

The Moon is Earth's only known natural satellite,There are a number of near-Earth asteroids including 3753 Cruithne that are co-orbital with Earth: their orbits bring them close to Earth for periods of time but then alter in the long term . These are quasi-satellites and not true moons. For more...

The gegenschein is a faint brightening of the night sky in the region of the antisolar point.- Explanation :Like the zodiacal light, the gegenschein is sunlight reflected by interplanetary dust...

may be because particles directly opposite the sun as seen from Earth would be in full phase

Lunar phase

A lunar phase or phase of the moon is the appearance of the illuminated portion of the Moon as seen by an observer, usually on Earth. The lunar phases change cyclically as the Moon orbits the Earth, according to the changing relative positions of the Earth, Moon, and Sun...

The Poynting–Robertson effect, also known as Poynting–Robertson drag, named after John Henry Poynting and Howard Percy Robertson, is a process by which solar radiation causes a dust grain in the Solar System to slowly spiral into the sun...

causes the particles to spiral slowly into the Sun, thus requiring a continuous source of new particles to maintain the zodiacal cloud. Comet

Comet

A comet is an icy small Solar System body that, when close enough to the Sun, displays a visible coma and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena are both due to the effects of solar radiation and the solar wind upon the nucleus of the comet...

Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...

s are believed to be mostly responsible for the maintenance of the dust cloud producing the zodiacal light and the gegenschein

Gegenschein

The gegenschein is a faint brightening of the night sky in the region of the antisolar point.- Explanation :Like the zodiacal light, the gegenschein is sunlight reflected by interplanetary dust...

. In recent years, observations by a variety of spacecraft have shown significant structure in the zodiacal light including dust bands associated with debris from particular asteroid families

Minor planet

An asteroid group or minor-planet group is a population of minor planets that have a share broadly similar orbits. Members are generally unrelated to each other, unlike in an asteroid family, which often results from the break-up of a single asteroid...

and several cometary trails.

Historical explanations

Previously, it was believed that zodiacal light was just the atmosphere of the sun. According to the 1728 Cyclopaedia:

"The zodiacal light is nothing but the solar atmosphere, a rare and subtile fluid, either luminous by itself, or made so by the rays of the sun surrounding its globe; but in a greater quantity, and more extensively, about its equator, than any other."

Importance to Islam

Islam . The most common are and . : Arabic pronunciation varies regionally. The first vowel ranges from ~~. The second vowel ranges from ~~~...

ic prophet Muhammed described zodiacal light in reference to the timing of the five daily prayers, calling it the "false dawn," ( الفجر الكاذب). Muslim oral tradition preserves numerous sayings, or hadith

Hadith

The term Hadīth is used to denote a saying or an act or tacit approval or criticism ascribed either validly or invalidly to the Islamic prophet Muhammad....

, in which Muhammed describes the difference between the light of false dawn, appearing in the sky long after sunset, and the light of the first band of horizontal light at sunrise, the true dawn. Practitioners of Islam use Muhammed's descriptions of zodiacal light to avoid errors in determining the timing of daily prayers. Such practical descriptions and applications of astronomical observations were vital to the golden age of Islamic astronomy

Islamic astronomy

Islamic astronomy or Arabic astronomy comprises the astronomical developments made in the Islamic world, particularly during the Islamic Golden Age , and mostly written in the Arabic language. These developments mostly took place in the Middle East, Central Asia, Al-Andalus, and North Africa, and...

.

Use of the term "false dawn" in this context should not be confused with false sunrise

False sunrise

A false sunrise or dawn sundog is a very particular kind of parhelion, belonging to the optical phenomenon family of halos.It is an atmospheric optical phenomenon associated with the reflection or refraction of sunlight by small ice crystals making up cirrus or cirrostratus clouds in the very...

The Zodiacal dust cloud is visible as a diffuse glow, known as the zodiacal light, that stretches along the zodiac, and is best seen just after sunset and before sunrise in spring and autumn when the zodiac is at a steep angle to the horizon....

Islamic astronomy or Arabic astronomy comprises the astronomical developments made in the Islamic world, particularly during the Islamic Golden Age , and mostly written in the Arabic language. These developments mostly took place in the Middle East, Central Asia, Al-Andalus, and North Africa, and...

Exozodiacal dust is the exoplanetary analog of zodiacal dust, the 1-100 micrometre-sized grains of silicate dust that fill the plane of the solar system, especially interior to the asteroid belt. As for the zodiacal dust, these grains are probably produced by outgasing comets as well as by...